There is a common rumor about the US military dog tags issued between 1941 and the early 70s. The rumor states that the notch on the dogtag is meant to be placed between the front teeth of a deceased soldier, and forcefully jammed between the teeth, for later identification of the body. The real, and only, purpose of this notch was to hold the blank tag in the machine that punched the letters onto the tag. Current machines do not need the notch to hold blank tags, therefor current tags do not have the notch.

During the Siege of Mafeking in the Second Boer War, Robert Baden-Powell recruited and trained 12-15 year old boys as scouts. The Mafeking Cadet Corps was a group of youths that supported the troops by carrying messages, which freed the men for military duties. The Cadet Corps performed well, helping in the defense of the town, and were one of the many factors that inspired Baden-Powell to form the Boy Scouts, a youth organisation originally run along military lines.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a twin engine fighter plane produced for the USAF between 1941 and 1945. Besides its unorthodox appearance, it suffered from the fact that both of its engines were 'critical' engines. Normal procedure for other twin engine planes of the time during take off with only one engine was to run that engine at full throttle. Doing this in the P-38 Lightning would create 'critical torque', which would create powerful enough asymmetric roll to flip the plane upside-down and smash it into the ground. Eventually procedures were developed and taught to the P-38 to overcome this problem.

The term "sniper" is derived from "snipe", which is a bird that was difficult to hunt. The term dates back to the 18th century.

At the start of World War I, none of the participating forces issued metal helmets to their troops. The first helmets were designed and issued after it was noticed that there was a significant number of head wounds inflicted on the soldiers in the trenches that were caused by exploding shrapnel overhead.